PROJECTS HIGHLIGHT

The role of Knowledge Networks in the creation, transformation, dissemination and application of knowledge has been widely recognized. These networks involve individuals and organizations around specific objectives and with collaborative participation in common or complementary tasks.

This content is availbale in Flash. In it are expressed UMIC areas of action:

Mobilize the Society and Stimulate Cooperation Networks

Promote Social Inclusion

Ensure the security and privacy in Internet use

Disseminate information of public interest

Promote an assessment and accuracy culture

Open Communications Market

Mobilizing the Information and Knowledge Society

Portugal is strongly committed to the development of an inclusive information society where knowledge is a fundamental ethical, cultural, social and economic value, fostering the creation of wealth and employment, the quality of life, and social development.

The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) is the Portuguese public agency with the mission of coordinating the policies for the Information Society and mobilizing it through dissemination, qualification and research activities. It operates within the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education.

The data now published include time series since the beginning of the systematic phase of the corresponding surveys up to 2010, with the exception of the survey on ICT in Hotel Units whose latest data are for 2008 since it was decided that the following survey would be held in 2011 and thereafter every two years. The data also include benchmarking of several indicators in the Member States of the European Union (EU), in general based on EUROSTAT data. A summary of the main results follows this notice.

The Web Content Accessibility for citizens with special needs was discussed at a session of the Forum for the Information Society held on the 5th of May 5 of 2011, at the Auditorium of SIBS, organized jointly by the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), and the Association for the Promotion and Development of Information Society (APDSI).

This session of the Forum discussed the new Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) approved by the W3C â World Wide Web Consortium in December 2008, which were published in Portuguese by UMIC on the 25th of February of 2009 (see Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG 2.0) of the W3C Published in Portuguese). Portuguese was the 3rd language in the world in which the new accessibility guidelines were published, only after the original English publication and an Hungarian translation published a few weeks before the Portuguese.

An article published in the January 2011 issue of the Journal of Information Technology & Politics, under the title "Global Web Accessibility Analysis of National Government Portals and Ministry Web Sites" presented the first comprehensive analysis of the Web accessibility of 192 Member States of the United Nations (UN).

Portugal is ranked 2nd in the accessibility of government websites in the study, with a value of 97.57% of Web accessibility, surpassed only by Germany which has a value of 98.72% of web accessibility.

The 1st ceFIMS Project Newsletter was published on the 18th of February of 2011. The Special Feature of this Newsletter is the article "Cars That Talk: The Future of Intelligent Transportation Systems" which is subtitled "Portugal Has the Largest Vehicular Networks Testbed in Europe". The article refers to the network of 500 taxi cabs of Porto developed as part of the project DRIVE-IN - Distributed Routing and Infotainment through Inter-Vehicular Networking of the Carnegie Mellon â Portugal Program.

The DRIVE-IN project involves researchers from the universities of Porto and Aveiro, the Associate Laboratory Institute of Telecommunications, the enterprises NDrive and Geolink, and also the Institute for Mobility and Land Transport, the RadiTaxis Cooperative and the Carnegie Mellon â Portugal Program.

On February 2, 2011, the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) made publicly available the beta version of AccessMonitor (text in Portuguese), the automatic evaluator developed by UMIC for the WCAG 2.0 â Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 approved by the W3C â World Wide Web Consortium on December 11, 2008, after a process of more than 8 years of open collaborative development of standards adopted by W3C and after the publication of 15 working versions before the final version. This new tool for assessing compliance with standards of accessibility of websites content, publicly available at no cost, results from the evolution of the tools developed and applied since 2005 by UMIC for the WCAG1.0. In fact, it builds up on the accessibility evaluation tool eXaminator (text in Portuguese) which was developed by UMIC for the WCAG1.0 and is freely available at no charge since December 2005.

On the 25-26 November 2010, the 1st Luso-Brazilian Conference on Open Access, jointly organized by the Documentation Services of the University of Minho, the Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN) and the Brazilian Institute of Information on Science and Technology (IBICT).

The Open Access Scientific Repository of Portugal (RCAAP), of the initiative and with funding of the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), and co-funded by EU funds of the Knowledge Society Operational Programme (see Open Access Repositories), participated through Eloy Rodrigues, director of the Documentation Services of the University of Minho, in the Berlin Open Access Conference 8, held on 25-27 October 2010, in Beijing, China.

The 4th Meeting with the Scientific Community in Portugal: CiÃªncia 2010, organized by the Council of Associated Laboratories in collaboration with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, takes place on 4 and 7 July 2010 at the Centro de Congressos de Lisboa, Junqueira, Lisbon. The opening session begins on Sunday, 4 July at 16:00.

On July 8, 2010, from 9:00 to 17:30, the Forum on the Information Society â Internet Governance took place at ISCTE-IUL, EdifÃ­cio II, AuditÃ³rio B203, Av. das ForÃ§as Armadas, Lisboa, (see the Forum program with links to presentations). This Forum is open to all interested participants.

The purpose of this forum, organized back-to-back with the public session of the World Internet Project (July 7, also at ISCTE-IUL, EdifÃ­cio II, AuditÃ³rio B203) by the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) in collaboration with the Foundation for National Scientific Computing (FCCN) and the Lisbon Internet and Networks Institute (LINI), was to discuss some of the main aspects of Internet Governance.

According to the European Commission report âEurope's Digital Competitiveness Reportâ for 2009, which was published on 17 May 2010, Portugal continues to make progress in development of the Information Society, particularly in eBusiness, eCommerce and eGovernment for enterprises, judging by the 13 indicators examined for these areas.

Portugalâs figures for 4 of the 6 eBusiness indicators are significantly above the EU average, are exactly on the average in one and even put Portugal second in the entire EU in one of the indicators.

On May 10, 2010, at the Macau Scientific and Cultural Centre, Rua da Junqueira 30, Lisbon, between 9:00 and 17:45, the Forum for the Information Society â Internet of the Future will take place (see Forum Program (in Portuguese)). The Forum is open to all interested parties.

The main objective of this Forum, organized by the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) with the support of Profs. Joao de Barros (Carnegie Mellon â Portugal Program, IT and FEUP) and Rui Aguiar (IT, U. Aveiro), is to get together expertise in strategic areas for the development of Future Internet, a subject on which there has been since 2006 a special national support, in particular within the international partnership programs of Portugal with some of the world leading institutions but also within other programs, to discuss the opportunities opening up in Future Internettechnologies, applications and services.

The 3rd âDevelopment Daysâ (site in Portuguese), an initiative of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, sponsored by IPAD â Portuguese Development Support Institute, IP, were held on 21-22 April 2010 in the PavilhÃ£o do Rio at the Centro de Congressos de Lisboa, Junqueira. As part of the programme, the âKnowledge, Empowerment and Technology Transferâ Conference (text in Portuguese) was held on 22 April, from 3pm to 5pm for all interested parties in the Pavilion. It was organised by The Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education, in partnership with IPAD. This Conference focussed on different aspect of Portuguese development cooperation in the fields of science, technology and higher education knowledge, empowerment and technology transfer.

Some 100 specialists from 17 Iberian and Latin American countries discussed cooperation in Future of the Internet knowledge and innovation fields.

The meetingâs objective is to analyse policies stimulating ICT innovation and knowledge, involving the public and private sectors: public administrations, international organisations, universities, scientific institutions, enterprises and non-governmental organisations active in the ICT area.

On 20-21 October 2009, in Luanda, Angola, took place the 1st National Conference on Science and Technology of Angola, organized by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Angola, whose Organizing Committee and Scientific Sub-Committee were chaired by Dr. Domingos da Silva Neto, National Director for Scientific Research, and whose secretariat was coordinated by Dr. Julius Campos de Almeida, Director of the Office of the Minister of Science and Technology.

The Conference had the motto: "The role of science and technology in the socioeconomic and sustainable development of Angola". It was opened by the Minister of Science and Technology, Professor Maria CÃ¢ndida Pereira Teixeira, and featured five panel sessions dedicated to:

On August 29, 2009, the Ministers CPLP â Community of Portuguese Language Countries responsible for science and technology and for higher education met in Lisbon.

Portugal has the Presidency of the CPLP this year and prepared an agenda which includes the discussion of a Portuguese proposal to create a, in a completely innovative approach, a UNESCO Centre for advanced training in science within the institutions of the CPL (text of the declaration in Portuguese) , combining the high-level scientific training, namely through PhD programs, with the training for the social responsibility of scientists, the public communication of science, and integration in international networks and research programs, with the objective of facilitating the scientific development of the countries of origin and of combating the brain drain. Portugal ensures the launching and the early operation of this new center of distributed advanced scientific training, in cooperation with UNESCO and in combination with other CPLP countries.

The programs e.escola, e.professor and e.oportunidades were created to facilitate the purchase of laptop computers with mobile broadband connections, respectively to 5th to 12th grade students, teachers of primary and secondary schools, and trainees in the New Opportunities Program with acquisition costs of 150 euros and a monthly subscription of mobile broadband access for 15 euros, with more favorable conditions applying to students who receive social support. The program e.escolinha has the objective of facilitating the purchase of MagalhÃ£es Computers by primary school students, the Portuguese Low Cost Computer Designed for Students of the 1st to 4th grades.

Less than four years after Portugal and Spain have signed an agreement to create this R&D laboratory, in November 2005, the building of the International Iberian Nanotechnology Laboratory was officially inaugurated on July 17, 2009. This laboratory will be the 1st in the world with an international legal status with States as members which is specially dedicated to nanotechnology, thus offering the best conditions for the most talented researchers from around the world to develop top research in nanotechnology. It is also the 1st international laboratory in the Iberian Peninsula in any area of research, leading to Portugal and Spain to enter the restricted group of countries that have such research international organizations in their territory.

According to the Report on Dematerialization and the Use of ICT, Lisbon 16-17 March 2009, of the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice Council of Europe (CoE), published in Strasbourg on June 11, 2009, Portugal is in the top position of the 47 European countries that are members of the CoE in dematerialization and use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in Justice.

The report states that several projects initiated since 2005 have led to very positive results, namely: by the end of February 2009, the enterprises created by the Enterprise on the Spot program reached more more than 67,900 companies and this system is used for about 70% of all enterprises being created in Portugal, 4,373 enterprises were created completely through the Internet (with the system developed by the Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and in operation since June 2006, see The Enterpriseâs Portal which was also developed by UMIC and is in operation since June 2006), more than 1,400 associations were created completely through the Internet, more than 31,260 acts of Commercial Registry were done online, more than 1 million permanent certificates were issued via the Internet, about 1.5 million acts of enterprises were published in the Internet instead of the III series of the Portugal Official Journal (DiÃ¡rio da RepÃºblica), as it was the case before. Since it was created in December 2006 until the end of January 2009, the service providing permanent certificates to enterprises on the Internet, issued more than 1 million permanent certificates. By the end of 2008, more than 792,000 Simplified Business Information (IES) declarations were reported through the Internet in a single form instead of the paper forms that previously required to be submitted annually to four different public organizations (Fiscal Administration, Commercial Registry, National Statistics Institute, Bank of Portugal).

Portugal was the EU country which showed the largest growth in R&D expenditure in terms of GDP from 2005 to 2007, reaching 1.18% of GDP when in 2005 it was just 0.81% of GDP. Portugal is now close to Spain (1.22%) and Ireland (1.31%), and has passed Hungary (0.97%), Italy (1.09%) and Estonia (1.14%).

R&D expenditure in terms of GDP more than doubled from to 2005 to 2007, reaching 0.61% of GDP when in 2005 it was just 0.29% of GDP. For the first time R&D expenditure in companies was greater than the amount recorded for other institutions. The number of companies with R&D activities showed unparalleled growth, rising from around 930 in 2005 to more than 1,500 in 2007.

There was a large increase in the number of researchers in the active population, rising from 3.8â° in 2005 to 5.0â° in 2007, with the number of researchers equivalent to full time posts doubling in the last ten years (from around 14 thousand in 1997 to around 28 thousand in 2007). The number of researchers in the active population is now close to the EU27 average (5.6â°), although this is still lower that the OCDE average (7.0â°).

The number of researchers in companies more than doubled from 2005 to 2007, moving from around 4 thousand to 8.6 thousand, and was accompanied by an increase in the number of researchers which companies stated as having PhDsÂ (around 360 in 2007).

Challenge 1: Pervasive and Trusted Network and Service Infrastructures

The network of the future, Service and software architectures, infrastructures and engineering, ICT in support of the networked enterprise, Secure, dependable and trusted infrastructures, Networked media;